As we head into the holiday season, it’s worth looking into ways your loved one with Alzheimer’s or another progressive dementia can be included in the festivities.
Obviously, how you address this season will depend on the stage your loved one is in. Early in the disease, you probably won’t have to make many changes in your traditions and plans. Eventually, your loved one may not be able to execute the tasks they would normally do at this time of year by themselves. Your mom may not be able to cook a favorite dish, but you could work around that by working together to help her. Your dad may not be able to shop independently for presents, but you can do it together.
As time goes on, large festive gatherings will just be too much for your loved one. It may be hard for you and your family to make the necessary modifications in traditions to accommodate this new reality, but it is absolutely necessary. The noise and chaos of a house filled with excited children may sound like the ideal holiday, but it will cause much confusion for your loved one as he or she tries to sort out what is happening around them.
Holiday gatherings are often the times when family members understand there is problem with a loved one. Thrown out of his or her familiar routine, your loved one may decompensate and their deficits become much more obvious. There is usually a spike in calls to the family physician about these matters in early January!
So smaller gatherings are eventually best. It’s probably best to do this in the loved one’s own home. Maybe different family groups can come for a visit individually throughout the day, and the surrounding days, being careful not to exhaust the limits of the loved one.
As the disease progresses further, perhaps your family member is in a memory care unit or a skilled nursing unit. During the last five years of my mother-in-law’s life, the family would gather for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners in her nursing home’s dining room. Our gifts to her were something practical, yet lovely–a fuzzy cardigan or a plush blanket, for example.
We were able to maintain our own family holiday traditions with Harvey for most of the duration of his disease. Our family of four kept our small traditions with stockings, gifts, and our breakfast of Monkey Bread. Then we would gather with the larger family for the big festive meal. The last Christmas that Harvey was home, though, this larger family gathering proved to be too much for him, and he hid out in one of my parents’ bedrooms. Once I realized what was happening, we left, but I felt badly that I had let it get to that point. And badly that we had to leave our extended family.
Everything changes with a diagnosis of dementia. Even holiday traditions.